More women pursuing orthopedic surgery

Patty Pensa, Special to the Tribune

It is not unusual for patients to ask Dr. Karen Wu if she is strong enough to perform surgery.

"It always seems to be in a half-joking kind of way. I tell them, 'There's no problem,'" said Wu, one of three female orthopedic surgeons at Loyola University Health System. At 5 feet 4 inches and 120 pounds, she does not fit the long-held stereotype of the specialty.

"There still is that general perception that orthopedics is physically demanding and requires a lot of strength. That's not true," said Wu, who specializes in hip and knee reconstruction.

Orthopedic surgery handles conditions related to the body's bones, muscles, cartilage, joints, tendons, ligaments and other connective tissues. With proper techniques, new technology and devices, brute strength is not a requirement for the highly competitive field. Still, that perception is one reason women represent just 4.3 percent of board-certified orthopedic surgeons, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. A lack of role models is another.

"It's up to us to make sure orthopedics is attractive to everybody," said Dr. Valerae Lewis, chief of orthopedic oncology at Houston's MD Anderson Cancer Center who sat on the academy's diversity advisory board. The Rosemont-based organization has been working to improve the numbers for more than a decade.

"We have to appeal to all of the medical school class. If we're not appealing to 50 percent of the class that is women then we're losing the best and the brightest," said Lewis.

Attracting more female orthopedic surgeons can rely on the snowball effect, said Dr. Terry Light, chairman of Loyola's Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation. Women applicants are more likely to pick a hospital that already has female surgeons and residents.

"It builds on itself," he said. "I take pride in it but I would never say we're going to take this person because she's female. It's one of the elements we're aware of and trying to be proactive about."

Loyola outpaces the national averages with women representing 20 percent of the hospital's orthopedic surgeons and 16 percent of its orthopedic surgery residents.

According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 14 percent of orthopedic residents are women, up from 8 percent 10 years ago. Loyola outpaces the national average, with 16 percent of its residents being women. Twenty percent of the hospital's orthopedic surgeons are women, while the national average, according to the academy, is just 4.3 percent.

Light said that 70 of the 570 applicants for five residency spots last year were women, Light said.

Dr. Joshua Jacobs, chairman of Rush University Medical Center's orthopedic surgery department, said he has seen the number of female applicants increase since he started serving on Rush's residency selection committee 20 years ago.

"Part of that, of course, is just the demographics of medical school," he said. "Also, there's a recognition that orthopedics is a much more friendly field for women. There's great opportunity in orthopedics for those women interested in the field."

Jacobs said Rush, which U.S. News & World Report ranked 10th in the nation for the specialty, is striving to be more competitive for female applicants. The hospital has female doctors and researchers working in related fields, such as sports medicine and podiatry. But having more women as orthopedic surgeons would help attract female residents, he said.

About 100 of the 700 medical students vying for the five spots next year are women, said Jacobs. Last, year, the hospital had had two female residents out of 25 in the specialty. Dr. Monica Kogan, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, is the only female in the specialty at Rush.

It's not the first time Kogan, 41, has stood out. From 1995 to 2000, she was the only female resident in her class at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and did not train under female surgeons. But Kogan said that things are changing. Most of the orthopedic surgeons she's worked with have been younger and more accustomed to women in the field, she said.

"With more women going into medical school, more women as mentors and younger (male) orthopedic surgeons who have worked with women, it makes it not such a big deal as it was 25 years ago," Kogan said. "I've never felt anything but accepted wherever I was at."